


The guilt hurts sometimes

by orphan_account



Series: TWDG Writing Challenge [24]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Clementine asks herself a looooot of questions, Clementine must suffer from a LOT of survivor's guilt tbh, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, i would too if literally everyone i ever met died
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21544618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Day 24 - Lee's gone. Clementine knows she had something to do with it.
Series: TWDG Writing Challenge [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533260
Kudos: 11





	The guilt hurts sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "It's not your fault."
> 
> Didn't tag Lee as a character because while he's mentioned a lot in this, he doesn't have a big enough role it in to justify tagging him as a character.
> 
> A lot of these questions are things I've wondered myself lol like... Clementine was shaped by the apocalypse. How would she have turned out if it never happened?

Sometimes Clementine wonders what her life would be like had the zombie apocalypse never happened.

She likes to think that she'd grow up normal and happy.

She'd go to school. She'd have friends. She'd probably still be playing soccer, and would have probably grown to like playing it. Maybe she'd even get taught how to play and instrument or two. A saxophone, a violin, perhaps a flute.

Maybe she'd know another language. The language she heard Sarah speak with her dad, Spanish she thinks, sounds very pretty. She'd like to learn Spanish someday.

What Clementine wonders the most is what she herself would be like.

She grew up surrounded by many different people, all of whom having many different, distinct personalities. Some of which had influenced Clementine's own personality.

Especially Lee.

Lee taught her to be tough, headstrong, and clever. He taught her survival, but to also value kindness above all else. He taught her to always have determination coursing through her veins.

Would she still be who she is today if she hadn't had met Lee? Or Kenny, or Sarah, or Luke? Ava?

And then, when she's alone and sad and a lot more vulnerable than she'd ever let anyone else see, she wonders other things too.

What if none of her friends died? Where would she be now?

Would she still be with Christa and Omid? The cabin group? If she wasn't kicked out, would she still be with the New Frontier?

Would she still be with Lee?

She doesn't know if he should count in that list. Everyone who had ever died and left her were gone because of circumstances out of her control. Clementine couldn't do anything about it at the time, no matter how hard she tried.

But Lee died because of her. He died because she was too innocent, and too naive, and was too desperate to find and see her parents at least one last time.

She wasn't tough, or headstrong, or clever like Lee had taught her to be. She was just a kid who missed her mom and dad and ended up killing off her only remaining parental figure because of it.

It's those types of thoughts that makes her grateful that Lee can't ever hear them, because she knows exactly what he'll say in response.

_It's not your fault, Sweet Pea. Don't ever think like that._

But she can't help it. Sometimes it's all she can think about.

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this at 2 am because I can't sleep yaaaay!~
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading! :)


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